Dozens of Omani students evacuated due to Hurricane Florence

Muscat: A total of 115 students Omani university and postgraduate students in North and South Carolina are being evacuated from the states which will be lashed by the Hurricane Florence.

Washington-based Oman Embassy cultural attaché Dr Talal al Balushi said that the evacuation operations have started as a precautionary measure, reported Oman Observer.

The Ministry of Higher Education has also coordinated the evacuation of dozens of Omani students with the cultural attache in Washington DC.

The Ministry of Higher Education has issued a circular urging the students to leave the campus as soon as the university closes its doors. Students have been urged to travel to safer states of the US in the South like Florida.

Students will be compensated for the costs of the evacuation, which include the car rentals, domestic travel tickets, hotel and food expenses.

The mission will cover all the above expenses from September 11 to 16 2018. All travel related invoices must be kept outside the storm-affected area.

Fierce winds and massive waves are expected to lash the coasts of North and South Carolina and Virginia even before Florence makes landfall by early Friday, bringing a storm surge as much as 13 feet (4 meters), the National Hurricane Center in Miami warned. Catastrophic floods could follow if the storm stalls inland, it said.

Although Florence was still days from arrival, authorities took extraordinary measures to move people out of harm’s way. More than 1 million residents have been ordered to evacuate from the coastline of the three states, while university campuses, schools and factories were being shuttered.

The U.S. Coast Guard closed ports in Wilmington and Morehead City, North Carolina and Hampton Roads, Virginia to inbound vessels greater than 500 tons and was requiring vessels of that size to leave if they did not have permission to be in the ports.